Fireball. Reality or hallucination?

 In our century, when physicists know what happened in the first seconds of the Universe, and what is happening in the yet undiscovered black holes, still surprised to admit that the main elements of antiquity — air and water — are still a mystery to us.

(I. P. Stakhanov, a Soviet physicist)

The power of nature is powerful and unpredictable. No matter how intelligent man, but not always it can cope with them. Earthquakes, landslides, floods, tsunamis... Natural disasters every time you are reminded of how fragile our lives are. Skyscrapers crumble like cardboard boxes, giant waves wash away entire cities, buried under an avalanche of everything that seemed so important... But we don't heed the lessons of nature and continue to accumulate, to amass, to build and to destroy, making mistakes... We're humans. The crown of creation... 

 The topic we are opening a new blog site "Apamama", dedicated to natural disasters. "Terribly interesting" – this phrase perfectly characterizes the subject. Today we will try to solve the mystery of ball lightning. 

Flies, sparkles and... thinks?!

Fireball is one of the most mysterious phenomena of nature. Surprisingly, scientists still can not confidently say whether it exists in reality. Not to mention the fact to explain the nature of its origin. There are over 400 different theories, but none of them has received an absolute recognition in the scientific world.

It's funny, but until now, no scientific instrument is not fully able to capture this phenomenon. Not observed ball lightning in the laboratory as it does not lure! Although evidence of the existence thereof has been preserved from the time of Ancient Greece. Eyewitnesses describe ball lightning like a ball of light several tens of centimeters in diameter that appears after a storm and floats quietly in the air currents. Bumping into objects, ball lightning has a tendency to explode. 

 Some semblance of ball lightning was recorded by the Chinese scientists in July 2012 in Tibet. Then the spectrometer caught the glow of ball lightning, but it lasted all of 1.64 seconds. And eyewitnesses say that the lightning floats in the air much longer, changing the flight path, and even, as it seems, endowed with thought!

If ball lightning exists, as a physical phenomenon in nature, it is likely that it can be created in a laboratory artificially? Of course, scientists have tried to do it. The first attempts to create ball lightning was made by Nikola Tesla in 1904. His followers also received some semblance of ball lightning, but this phenomenon was also very short. Artificial ball lightning there were only a couple of seconds, which again doesn't match with eyewitness accounts. 

 Reality or hallucination?

According to one version, the fireball is plasma, on the other chemiluminescent process. Third, it is formed from nitrogen and oxygen in the channel simple zipper. And the latest version of Austrian scientists (Joseph's Feast and Alexander Centema), ball lightning – a phosphene is a visual sensation that the man in the dark in the form of luminous dots, spots and shapes. And to put it simply is a hallucination!.. 

 "Thunderball could not exist!" - according to some scientists. However, contrary to this claim it probably exists. And the question about its nature even in the 21st century remains open...

I wonder have anyone of our readers to meet with a fireball? Share impressions in the comments!